Fanfic #121 A Young Reaper's Afterlife by L4 of the WEST(YoujoSenkiXBleach)

This fanfic is a crossover between Youjo Senki and Bleach following Tanya, and some other characters, in the world of Bleach. I really like this fic because it's exploring more of Bleach from the Soul Society side before jumping into canon, which makes the world feel more complete.

Synopsis: Tanya Von Degurechaff ends up in the Bleach universe's afterlife after a series of unfortunate events.

Rated: M

words: 74k

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-young-reapers-afterlife-youjo-senki-bleach.946624/reader/

Here's the first chapter:

If she had known 6 years ago when the war started that Being X would send an insane berserker after her, and that their fight would end with her lying in the mud of some poor Russy blown-to-hell farm field, maybe she would have reconsidered her path to the back lines. But then again if she had known what would happen with her plans she would have definitely rethought them. Hindsight, in this case, was a painful 20/20.

She attempted to sit up and failed, her injuries leaving her without feeling below her waist. She fell back down on the cold, wet ground and listened to the roar of artillery around her. By the sound of it, she estimated she probably landed on the Russy side of the battlefield. Underneath the soviet thunder, she could hear her Kampfgruppe Salamander, her battle maniacs advancing through the mud and cannon fire towards the area she managed to crash. The counter fire of their panzers and armored self-propelled guns was a familiar sound by now. It was stupid to risk their lives to the Russy fire without close aerial mage support, though it was almost reassuring to know someone cared, she thought with a chuckle.

If she could, she would've ordered them to stop, though. It would be easy to do so- they had never failed to obey an order before - however, her radio landed by someone's arm a few yards away to her right… oh, that was her arm. Looking down, she numbly realized her right forearm had been ripped off by the explosion of the lunatic's orb, leaving only a charred and bloody stump, with bits of bone poking out.

Looking too closely would probably break her out of her shock, so she looked back at the sky. Tanya was already starting to feel enough to know she was not long for this world but she didn't want to dwell on it.

Coughing up some blood, she noticed the sky was already turning gray - a telling sign this time of year that winter would be here soon. The one thing she would truly miss was the sky. The feeling of personal flight was so different from what it had been in her last life. Being able to move through the sky was a wonder that made everything Being X had tossed at her almost worth her first death. Then again, she couldn't really blame Being X for her first death. Gazing up she saw fire being exchanged between her mages and the mercenaries. It was spectacular watching her smaller force hold back and grind the larger enemy force down. It would take at least 5 to 10 minutes before they would be able to spare a few men to recover her and she doubted she had that much time.

"My lost lamb in your hour of need you need only pray," an ephemeral voice echoed from above her.

'Speak of the devil' she thought, watching as a muscular but elderly man appeared standing over her in a dull flash of light. He had apparently chosen to sport a white beard and a toga for this meeting.

"A devil? Well, that's a step in the right direction," the self-proclaimed god chuckled while looking around the battlefield as if he was just out for a stroll.

"So much death over such an insignificant thing as prayer. Even the communists who denied their own people the right to worship still allow them to pray before the end," he was looking toward the Russy lines, perhaps describing what he saw. It didn't matter if he was, it was a waste of her time.

'Being X, as much as I would love to revisit this conversation again, I'll be dead before we've finished our dance, so let's cut to the chase. You wanted me to pray to you for power, however, I wouldn't have needed to if you didn't cheat by creating that berserker. Any prayer I make now would be tainted by the knowledge that neither one of us won this argument, but in the interest of getting the last word' She took moment to gather her thoughts.

'I'll concede this: if you were not trying to force your faith on me and presented me with a proper account of cost and benefits, maybe - just maybe - I would have prayed to you. The moment you forced me to do so with that cursed item, you went too far. I cannot forgive that you tried to take my right to choose.' She could feel her brain slowing down from blood loss, but she was not going to die without saying her piece.

Being X looked back at her thoughtfully, then said "Maybe… maybe I was too forceful." He then gazed up at the battle in the skies above absentmindedly. "Your life is coming to an end; however, you have shown me a few things that I must ponder, and though you hated praying to me, you did help spread my faith, so I will offer you a boon. There are many worlds on many strings that make up existence. When you die I will send you and those who meant something to you to a world I and those I work with do not meddle in. There will be entities like me there, I'm sure, but they will not know you from any of their own. You will have a fresh start to make of yourself without my meddling."

'Well… thank you?' Tanya thought, wondering if this was a near-death illusion, then she was sidetracked by the thought, 'did he just confirm multiverse theory?'

"Goodbye atheist, may we never cross paths again," X said, with a chuckle before walking out of sight and out of existence. Turning her head to where he once stood, he was just gone.

Lying there alone with her thoughts waiting to die quickly became grating. As she went over X's words she pulled herself together for one last act of defiance. Biting down the pain, she crawled the few yards over to her radio. Spitting blood and who knows what else out, she turned on the device with her remaining hand and said in the best and strongest voice she could muster,

"This is Lt. Colonel Degurechaff. I'm fine, flight gear smashed on landing. Stay on mission and pick me up once the operation is complete."

Then she laid down, looking up at the sky again, even more tired than before. If Being X was going to do her the favor of making sure people who had a connection to her would run into her in the next life, she would do him the disservice of making sure most of those people did not die the same day she did. With a smile, she closed her eyes. A minute or so later, she stopped breathing.

=-=

When Tanya next opened her eyes, she saw a clear blue empty sky. The pain was gone and she felt good, probably better than she had felt in a while, just a bit hungry. Sitting up, she found she had been lying in the middle of the street surrounded by run-down Japanese homes of an ancient style. This caused her to briefly wonder if she had been reincarnated in feudal Japan, but looking at a lock of blond hair that fell in front of her eye told her that if she had, she was still Tanya, so not a proper reincarnation. Her arm was also back which was a plus. With a grunt of effort, her limbs feeling like they had not been used in a week, she pulled herself into a standing position.

She leaned against a pillar in front of a building that needed to be condemned to get herself used to standing on her feet again. Looking down, she saw that, sometime between her death and this resurrection, someone had cleaned up her dress uniform, though her orb and weapons were missing. However, as nice as it was to have something familiar to wear, it seemed out of place: a mark of affluence considering how her uniform looked very professional and wealthy, and everyone around her looked… not that.

The people she could see were decidedly of a peasant class, if she had to guess; most of their clothing was not much better than rags. She could see some laborers loading up a cart nearby with what looked like unrefined goods, possibly wood and animal skins, but most of the townsfolk seemed to be busy drinking and looking depressed.

"Well now, what do we have here?"

Looking to her right, she saw a dirty ragged fellow and a couple of minion types coming her way.

"What do you think, 17th-century European cabin boy who tried to sneak into Japan?" he asked one of his minions, a thin fellow with oversized glasses.

"Nah, the cut of the uniform is too good. I'm going to go with 19th-century royalty who probably died by insulting a samurai," the thin fellow responded, looking her over.

"Well, whoever this kid is, they're obviously noble and a foreigner, and this here is the wrong part of Soul Society for that kind of layabout, so let's show him his new position in the pecking order of the world," the last of the group, a brute of a man, said, as he pulled out a what looked like a wooden bat—no, maybe a club would be a better description—from a sling on his back.

Tanya had been content to let them speak. They didn't seem to know she spoke Japanese and so they had let her in on a few things that could be useful later on. How time-travelling death could be useful, she wasn't sure, but it gave her a good idea that this place was probably more chaotic than anything she'd seen before and by far not normal.

"I would not do that if I were you," she said, in fluent Japanese, though she noted a bit of an accent, probably a byproduct of speaking Imperial German for so long. "Showing me this pecking order at the end of a club will not work as it would just be a waste of our finite time, and I have no quarrel with you three," she said, standing straighter and stepping away from the pillar. Even at her full height, the three of them towered over her, giving them a reach advantage she did not like.

"Oh yeah kid, you're too good to spend some time with the locals, want to run off to the noble districts and be pampered?" the thin fellow taunted, pulling a dagger from his belt.

Things were quickly gettering out of hand so, as a measure of self-assurance, she mentally reached out for her magic. Unfortunately, she didn't feel her magic, though she did feel something. She couldn't put her finger on what the power was. There was something there, but it was different, more fluid. Normally she probably would have carefully tested this power to make sure it was safe, but this was an emergency situation she found herself in.

Being bold was preferable to being beaten to a bloody pulp, so she drew upon the power and attempted to run it into a simple enhancement spell. Surprisingly, it worked, but the power was weaker than what she anticipated. Though that may not be much of a problem in this case. She was used to fighting mages in aerial combat -- sometimes in close quarters -- looking in front of her at the three bandits? Vagabonds? Impetuous youths at heart? Whatever they were, they were not mages and whatever this power was, it should be enough to handle them. However, out of a need to avoid violence, she would attempt to give them one more chance to walk away.

"Gentlemen, there is no need for weapons. I have no interest in fighting on my first day in this place, besides, I'm sure the local authorities would not be happy that you are assaulting new arrivals for reasons as low as looking rich and foreign?" Tanya said, hoping to appeal to worry about the law at the bare minimum.

"Hah! Kid, the Gotei 13 don't care what happens out here in the boonies, only our boss cares, and he gave us specific orders to make sure anyone who looks like a trouble maker should be put in their place or run off," the first ragged fellow responded with a chuckle.

'They are the law….' she thought, very dissatisfied with this whole turn of events.

"Oh... how unfortunate," she said, with a deep sigh and a shake of her head. "Criminal assault and intimidation are usually frowned upon in a modern enlightened and legitimate society, but if it's a dog-eat-dog world, I guess I must do as the Romans do."

In a fight, there is no room for fairness; maybe if she had a guarantee that she would not be left to die in a ditch somewhere she would have approached the situation with less force. But she had no such guarantees, so her first right hook powered by the unknown enhancement smashed into the ragged fellow's kidney causing him to double over allowing her left hook to hit him in the side of the skull right behind the eye, knocking him out.

The brute and the thin man looked on in confusion and surprise for a moment as their leader fell face-first into the dirt road, unmoving. She was about to ask them to surrender or run off when the brute came at her with the club hitting her across her right shoulder smashing her upper arm into her shoulder blade. It hurt like hell, and she was sent stumbling to her left, but she had no time to think about pain.

Forcing the power into her arm to dull the ache she then squared up with the brute. How to deal with the big wall of muscles? There was no way the last trick would work twice, and she doubted even as enhanced as she was at this moment would she be able to go fist to fist with him. She needed a weapon. Looking past him she saw the thin fellow had moved to their fallen friend and kneeled down to look him over… and he had dropped his dagger on the ground beside him.

One of the few benefits to the malnutrition that had led to her short height was that she was hard to hit when she started moving and that benefit worked out for her here, ducking low she went under and to the left of the brute who swung his club high missing her by just a few inches. While she slid the last few feet she aimed her booted leg and smashed it into the thin man's side, knocking him over, and with no guard on the dagger she picked it up and faced off against the brute.

Just in time to dodge over the body of the ragged fellow as he brought the club down. She thought she saw the club embed itself a couple of inches in the dirt as she turned back to the situation, but she didn't have time to marvel at the man's strength. Instead, she sank her newly claimed dagger in his thigh before dodging back and avoiding another hit from his club. He screamed in pain and turned to face her. A dance began as three times he came at her with his club and twice she was able to inflict more damage to his legs while avoiding his attack. When he came at her for the third time he was off-balance and his guard was open so she was able to smash him in the skull with the butt of the dagger putting him out of her misery.

Breathing heavily, she turned around to look at the thin fellow, he was still on the ground looking up at her with apprehension and fear, not a threat as it were. With a moment to rest, she checked the knife and found it bloody and rusted.

"You should take better care of your tools" she muttered, kneeling and ripping the fabric of the brutes shirt. With a relaxed smile, she began to clean the blade as she walked up to his sitting form. "You were the closest by way."

"Wh-what do you mean?" he asked with a weak voice, looking up at her.

"I'm from the early 20th century, self-made noble in fact, though I doubt that means anything here." She could go into detail about how she was actually a twenty-first-century human resources officer, but she doubted that that would actually help the situation and would probably just confuse the poor man. Right now she needed the thin man somewhat compliant and not confused to get the most information from him.

"I was a poor orphan who fought her way up the ranks to find a safe, secure back lines job. Unfortunately, by my youthful appearance, you can guess that didn't work out." She flashed him what she thought was a winning smile as she finished shining the dagger to perfection. "And now I'm here and I have questions. Would you do me the favor of answering those questions?"

The thin, bespectacled man looked at her with wide eyes then at his compatriots. After an audible gulp, the man unclasped his dagger sheath from his belt and offered it to her, stuttering out a weak "What do you want to know?"